Space Shuttle Discovery's Final Launch

February 24, 2011
NASA's Space Shuttle Discovery will make its last trip into low Earth orbit today. Discovery will be traveling to the International Space Station, carrying a large module packed with supplies and critical spare parts, as well as a robotic assistant named Robonaut 2.

With the entire Space Shuttle program scheduled for mandatory retirement this year, Discovery is the most-flown spacecraft in history, traveling 143 million miles (230 million kilometers) over the course of its 39 missions since 1984, and spending nearly a full year in orbit. This mission, STS-133, is scheduled for liftoff at 4:50 p.m Eastern Time.

Gathered here are images of Discovery, its crew, and support staff from the past several months, while the spacecraft was being prepared for today's launch.
At NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, shuttle Discovery pauses in between Orbiter Processing Facility-3 and the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) during a move called "rollover" on September 9th, 2010. Once inside the VAB, the shuttle will be joined to its solid rocket boosters and external fuel tank. Later, Discovery was scheduled to "rollout" to Launch Pad 39A for its launch to the International Space Station on the STS-133 mission. (NASA/Dimitri Gerondidakis)

The underside of space shuttle Discovery is visible in this image photographed by an Expedition 23 crew member on the International Space Station soon after the shuttle and station began their post-undocking relative separation on April 17th, 2010. Undocking ended a stay of 10 days, 5 hours and 8 minutes.The recognizable feature on Earth below is the south end of Isla de Providencia, about 150 miles off the coast of Nicaragua near 13.3 degrees north latitude 81.4 degrees west longitude. (NASA)

The space shuttle Discovery lands on Kennedy Space Center's Runway 33 Tuesday, April 20, 2010, in (AP Photo/NASA, Bill Ingalls)

Space Shuttle Discovery is towed from the shuttle landing facility to the orbiter processing facility at Kennedy Space Center on April 20, 2010. (Matt Stroshane/Getty Images)

Discovery and the Lunar Eclipse

December 21, 2010

Image Credit: NASA/Kim Shiflett
Space shuttle Discovery waits to roll back from Launch Pad 39A to the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida in the early morning hours of Dec 21, 2010, with the beginning of the total lunar eclipse clearly in view.

Once inside the VAB, Discovery's external fuel tank will be examined and foam reapplied where 89 sensors were installed on the tank's aluminum skin for an instrumented tanking test on Dec. 17.

The sensors were used to measure changes in the tank as super-cold propellants were pumped in and drained out.

Data and analysis from the test will be used to determine what caused the tops of two, 21-foot-long support beams, called stringers, on the outside of the intertank to crack during fueling on Nov. 5.

Discovery's next launch opportunity is no earlier than Feb. 3, 2011.

Space Shuttle Launch STS-131 Time-Lapse

Space Shuttle Discovery Being Rolled Out For The Last Time

September 21, 2010

Space shuttle Discovery rolling out for it's final mission.


The space shuttle Discovery rolled out to its launch pad for what is scheduled to be its final mission. Discovery left the Vehicle Assembly Building at 7:23 pm EDT (2323 GMT), arriving at pad 39A about six and a half hours later. Discovery is scheduled to lift off on November 1 on STS-133, the final scheduled mission for the orbiter. On that 11-day mission, the next to last currently scheduled for the shuttle fleet, Discovery will take the Permanent Multipurpose Module packed with supplies and critical spare parts, as well as Robonaut 2 to the International Space Station.


The winged orbiter, the oldest of NASA's space shuttle fleet, emerged from its maintenance hangar for the last time to journey to the nearby Vehicle Assembly Building. Once inside the cavernous 52-story building, Discovery will be attached to the twin solid rocket boosters and external fuel tank that will help launch it to the International Space Station.

Discovery's upcoming STS-133 mission will mark the shuttle's 39th flight to space and NASA's 133rd shuttle flight since the fleet began space launches in 1981. It is NASAs second-to-last space shuttle mission before the fleet retires next year.

The shuttle Endeavours STS-134 mission in late February 2011 is scheduled to be the final flight, though an extra mission on the orbiter Atlantis is under consideration. NASA is retiring its shuttle fleet to make way for a new plan to send astronauts to visit an asteroid by 2025.

Discovery's quarter-mile trip between its maintenance hangar and Vehicle Assembly Building was the 41st rollover in 26 years for Discovery, also known by its orbiter designation OV-103.

Discovery has more rollovers than actual space missions because the shuttle had to repeat the trip on two occasions: once for its maiden flight, STS-41D, in 1984 and again in 1991 before the STS-39 mission. In both cases, the re-rollover was due to Discovery needing repair before it could fly.

Discovery's last journey was made atop the same 36-wheeled transport trailer that has moved Discovery and all of NASAs orbiters before each mission.

The trip between a shuttle hangar and the Vehicle Assembly Building typically takes about a half-hour to complete, but NASA parked Discovery outside its hangar for several hours to allow its employees those who worked on the shuttle to pose with spacecraft for one last set of photos.

Once mated to its boosters and fuel tank an hours-long procedure assisted by a crane that is expected to be completed Friday morning Discovery will embark on a different type of roll.

The completely assembled shuttle stack will ride a massive Apollo-era crawler transporter to the 3.4-mile (5.4-km) trip to Launch Pad 39A. At the pad, Discovery will be readied for its November launch and loaded with its payload.

No Time To Retire Shuttle

The United States will retire the space shuttle, the most robust and capable space vehicle the world has ever seen, simply because our government has decided to do that. We have no vehicle to replace the space shuttle, and we will have no replacement for an unspecified amount of time.

This is an enormous strategic mistake that requires serious reconsideration from all levels of government. Anything less will result in the U.S. surrendering its leadership role in human spaceflight for the foreseeable future. Unique, valuable skills, experience and knowledge will be lost as the work force has no other choice but to disperse.

Ironically, the international space station, our $100 billion investment a quarter of a century in the making, is just nearing completion, and President Barack Obama is proposing to extend its mission until at least 2020. With the impending cancellation of the space shuttle program, there is little foresight and even less of a concrete plan on how we can fully utilize the space station to ensure it becomes everything that it can be and was promised to be. The fact is the space station was designed and always intended to be supported by the space shuttle in addition to unmanned cargo vehicles supplied by Russia, Europe and Japan. These cargo vehicles cannot completely replace the unique capabilities of the space shuttle and were always intended to act as a supplement.

With the shuttle gone, the United States will be reliant on a foreign power, Russia, and its Soyuz spacecraft for an unspecified amount of time to transport astronauts to the space station, so heavily funded by the American people. For this service, Russia will be charging the United States approximately $50 million per seat. Per the space station agreement with our international partners, the United States transports European, Japanese and Canadian astronauts to the station on the space shuttle, since they have no crew capability of their own. Of course retirement of the shuttle does not nullify that agreement, and the American taxpayer will now also be paying Russia for the transport of our European, Japanese and Canadian partners as well.

Compounding this problem is the fact Russia has signaled the price per seat will likely continue to increase as time goes forward. The United States will have no choice but to pay whatever Russia decides to charge, because, after all, we will have given Russia a monopoly and with that surrendered a part of our national sovereignty.

There has been much discussion and debate about commercial providers’ taking over the role that the space shuttle was always intended to perform. This is a worthy goal that I support for many reasons, but these vehicles do not exist and are not operational today. However, if the United States allows the international space station to degrade or not realize its full potential, the business case for these commercial providers degrades as well. An extension of the space shuttle program prevents this. Once commercial providers are operational and have verified their performance, that would be — and should be — the trigger for space shuttle retirement.

If we turn our back on spaceflight without any near- or long-term plan and outsource our immediate needs to other nations, it will be a sad day for the United States — perhaps an indicator that this great nation truly is in decline. I understand the economic climate in which we live today. However, we must look at this as an investment, one that costs this nation approximately one-half of 1 percent of the federal budget for all of NASA yet returns so much to the economy as a whole. The space shuttle program is a fraction of that amount and can be made even more economically efficient while still protecting the safety of our astronauts. In a time when there is so much uncertainty about jobs and the role of the United States in the world, this is a small price to maintain American leadership at the space station and in spaceflight.

Mike Snyder - Aerospace Engineer on the Space Shuttle Program in Houston

Last Shuttle Flights

The last space shuttle flights have been rescheduled. If you are one of the thousands of space fans planning to view one of these final flights, take note! STS-133 has been postponed from September 16 to November 1, 2010 with a liftoff planned for 4:33 PM EDT.

What may be the final flight of a space shuttle, has been postponed until February 26, 2011, with liftoff at 4:19 PM. This flight of Endeavour is the last flight currently planned and funded.

Some members of Congress are pushing for at least one more flight after that: of Space Shuttle Atlantis in the June timeframe. Atlantis is being kept on standby in case one of the other flights has significant tile or other damage, requiring the crew to be rescued. Two Soyuz are docked at the station, each capable of returning 3 crewmembers. But those are needed to evacuate the resident crew of the station in the event of an emergency (such as a debris strike or fire), so are not available to return a stranded shuttle crew.

If Atlantis is not needed for a rescue, but is ready to fly, members of Congress have suggested that it be used to take up more spares and supplies before mothballing it for a museum. A decision from Congress is expected by the end of the summer.

The STS-133 flight of Discovery was delayed to allow more time to prepare spares that will be taken aloft inside a multi-purpose carrier: including a pump package, a heat exchanger, and "Robonaut," a robotic human-shaped upper torso that may eventually be used in a spacewalk support role.

Steve Lindsey will command the crew for STS-133. The pilot is Eric Boe. The crew includes two spacewalkers: Alvin Drew and Timothy Kopra, and Mission Specialists Michael Barratt and Nicole Stott. If STS-134 is indeed the last shuttle flight, because it has an all-male crew, Nicole Stott (onthis flight) will be the last woman to fly on a space shuttle.

STS-134 was originally planend for this month, and STS-133 would have been the final flight before shuttle retirement. But the payload, the Alpha Magnetic Sectrometer, was not ready. A late-November or December launch were not an option because of conflicts with other launches and also temperature constraints caused by the high sun angle that time of year.

Those of us planning to view or otherwise commemorate the final shuttle flight, will just have to stay flexible!

ATK Sets Final Shuttle Rocket Test

ATK Space Systems in Promontory Utah says the ground test, scheduled for February 25, will signal the end of the space shuttle program.

ATK, the company that makes booster rockets for the space shuttle, says it will conduct a final test firing in northern Utah later this month.

NASA had intended to replace the space shuttle with a new spaceship and launcher for travel to the moon and beyond, however, President Barack Obama has proposed scrapping the new program for something different, leaving NASA's longtime contractor in Utah with an uncertain future.

Clearfield-based ATK Space Systems has laid off 970 workers in Utah since October, citing the phase-out of the space shuttle and the Minuteman III ballistic missile programs.